in your heartbeat is my home
by WriterAtHeart14
Summary: Another nightmare has El facing one of her biggest fears, but a quick call over the super com leads to El finding something new to love about Mike. Post The Battle of Starcourt/pre Three Months Later epilogue. Oneshot!


**A/N- I DO NOT OWN STRANGER THINGS! **

**Hey guys! **

**I actually thought of this story (oneshot) while sitting at work today and tried to get it down in my notes on my phone, so if there are any copyediting errors, that's why, haha. I've been stuck on Stranger Things (still) so I'm gonna keep writing for you guys as long as I have ideas coming. Thank you so much for the support for my last oneshot, it means so much! **

**I hope you enjoy this one too! **

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They were down to a few days before Mrs. Byers had written on the calendar in the kitchen that they were scheduled to move. Nothing had been done, packing wise. Mrs. Byers had cleaned the house a lot, after it had been fixed up. It hadn't been sold yet—the news story about Hawkins being the closest thing to hell on Earth really made the market for real estate a difficult place to navigate for Mrs. Byers, and El felt bad that she was struggling but not too bad, because she still wasn't sure if she really was okay with leaving.

Hawkins held a lot of bad things for her. The lab. The seemingly endless torture, experiments, long dark nights, the screaming, crying out for someone she thought supposedly cared about her. Opening the gate and setting a monster loose on an innocent town. Destroying the monster and sending herself to another dimension that seemed to thrive on nightmares. The hiding from the people in the lab. The month in the woods, and then in the cabin. Time taken away from Mike and her friends. Completely exhausting herself by closing the gate, supposedly. Battling more of the monster, a stronger and bigger monster. Losing people she loved. Watching people she loved lose their loved ones. It was awful. How could anyone want to stay after two years like that?

Mrs. Byers thought she did, but after Hopper...she didn't see anything in Hawkins but suffering, and El couldn't blame her for that.

But at the same time, Hawkins was her home. The only home she'd ever known. The first place that, even for a little while, she felt safe. She made friends. She found a family. She fell in... what was that word Mike had used? She hadn't heard it too often before. Whatever it was, it seemed to sum up exactly how she felt about Mike. He was her biggest reason to stay. El didn't know life without Mike, at least not outside of the lab. The last thing she wanted was to try and figure out life without him by her side. The anxiety and fear of it was building, slowly reaching a peak—which brought her here.

She'd been lying in bed for a little while now, trying to slow her breathing. She'd had another nightmare which seemed to copy one of her last encounters with Billy. Only this time, it wasn't Billy. It was someone she feared much more.

_She was sitting in Hopper's cabin, a place she was supposed to feel safe. But it was empty. Where did all of her friends go? "Mike?" __she called out to him. Surely he was here. He wouldn't leave her. But nothing happened. "Mike?" she called out again, her voice shaking. "Mike?!" She stood up from the floor, becoming more panicked. "Mike? Mike!" she screamed. _

_"He can't hear you," came a voice from behind her. _

_Suddenly she remembered this. This happened before. She turned around. _

_A shadow approached from Hopper's bedroom, and outstepped the white haired, dark suited man of her nightmares, causing her to gasp. "Eleven." He spoke with such an even tone, it made her stomach turn. "Why haven't you looked for me?" He continued to step closer to her as he spoke. "You forget I can still see you. We can all see you."  
_

_The room suddenly felt like it was getting smaller, and as the size decreased, Brenner got closer and closer. Her breaths began to come out in short gasps, as she backed away from him. _

_"_You _are the reason your friends are in danger. And yet you continue to pretend as if you are as mundane as they are," he said, following her. _

_She shook her head in disbelief as tears began falling down her face. _

_"Don't you see?" Brenner unclasped his hands from behind his back, allowing his arms to fall at his sides, causing El to flinch. "All this time you thought you were in hiding. You thought these people could help you. You thought they could protect you."_

_She couldn't breathe. Why couldn't she breathe? She couldn't even get air into her lungs. It seemed impossible. It was as if the air was too heavy, too thick to even inhale. With each step closer that he took, it was as there was less and less air to breathe. _

_"All that work, all that pain, all that suffering...they went through it all because of you." He didn't even seem to notice that she wasn't breathing, or if he did, he didn't make any indication that he even cared. "And now it's time to end it. We are going to take you back, Eleven. And when you are gone, we _will _kill your friends. Beginning with that boy that you've become so fond of." _

_"No!" she screamed, as tears fell in a steady stream down her face. "Get away!" She squeezed her eyes shut, covering her ears in an attempt to block out his voice ringing in her head. He wasn't real. He couldn't be. He just couldn't. _

El bolted up right in bed, gasping for air. She glanced over to her bedside table. She hated to do it. She hated bothering Mike, but it was her last resort. She cautiously reached out to her bedside table and grabbed her super com. "Mike?" she whispered into it, hoping he'd still hear. "Mike, please pick up."

The static that reverberated back to her made her heart sink. He was probably asleep. He, Dustin and Lucas had spent all day with Will playing DD which for reasons she couldn't quite understand was very exhausting to them. "Mike," she whispered again, with tears threatening to fall.

"El?" His voice broke through the static. "El, what's wrong? Are you okay?" He seemed almost wide awake now, and the concern was evident even through the poor connection.

"I had a nightmare," she said, hot tears beginning to stream down her face. "It was Papa. He came back and he said he'd kill you."

"He's gone, El," Mike soothed. "He can't hurt you, or me, or anyone else."

"But what if he's not gone?" she hiccuped, finally voicing a fear she'd had for a while now. She never brought it up to anyone, not even Mike or Hopper. "What if he comes back? And what if my powers don't come back, how will I protect you?"

Mike had never heard her talk like this before. He'd seen her vulnerable and afraid of Dr. Brenner many times, but never like this. "I'm okay. I'm right here. And you're okay. Everything is okay."

"How—How can I be sure?" she hiccuped. "How do I know you're okay?"

"I'm talking to you right now, aren't I?" he joked, and she couldn't help but let a small smile spread across her face, despite the steady stream of tears still coming down her face.

"I-I need you. I-I m-miss you." El knew it wasn't fair, because she knew that he would do anything for her—just as she would for him—but she couldn't help it.

"I'm coming, okay? I'm coming."

...

A quiet knock on the window caused El to jump, but only for a second as she saw the most familiar face staring back at her. She ran to the window and threw it open, throwing her arms around his neck. "Mike," she gasped. "I thought it was real. I thought you were gone."

He wrapped his arms around her, not knowing how else to comfort her—how else to make her believe that he was okay.

"What if Papa's not gone?" she cried. "How can I protect you? What will I—" El was cut off as she gasped for breath. She didn't even realize how hard she'd been crying.

"El, I'm right here," Mike said softly into her ear. "Everything is okay. Take a deep breath."

When she pulled away he could see streaks where tears had dried on her face as fresh ones continued to roll down her cheeks. He climbed over the window sill into her bedroom and led her back her to her bed. He took off his jacket and kicked off his shoes as she got under the blankets and moved over to one side in order to make room for him.

Once Mike was under the blankets she clung to him, as if her life really depended on it. "I can't leave you," she cried again. "Please don't make me."

"Don't think about that right now," he said, although the thought had been keeping him up at night too. "I'm here right now. You're safe."

"I can't leave you," she repeated. "I can't. H-He'll get you. Not safe, not safe!"

"El, listen to me." Mike pulled away from her and held her face in his hands. "He _can't _get me, okay? I biked all the way over here and I'm safe. I'm here right now with you, and I'm okay. You're okay. Look at me. I'm okay."

Her eyes frantically looked him over, as if she didn't believe what he was saying. But when he didn't seem to have anything wrong with him, her gaze settled on his face. Her breathing began to return to normal.

"I'm okay, El. I promise."

They repositioned themselves to lie down. El laid her head on his chest, still hiccuping, as Mike put an arm around her. She was silent for a minute, seeming to calm down a bit before saying softly, "I can hear your heart."

"Gee, I'd hope so," he joked again. "I kinda need that."

Mike could feel her slowly relax in his hold, burying her head as much as she could into his chest. "It's nice," she said. "Steady." He watched as she pressed her ear to his chest, and her eyes began to seemingly grow heavy. He was almost surprised to find that it calmed her.

"Sleepy, El?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

"Mmmm," she mumbled. "Your heart beat means...you're okay. You're right here." The gentle drum of his heartbeat was the most soothing thing she'd ever heard. El didn't know another sound like it. Hearing Mike's voice was certainly calming to her, it always had been. But this was a new level of calm she'd never felt before. _This is Mike's heart_, she told herself. It was what kept her favorite person alive. It was a constant reassurance in her ear, as she drifted off to sleep, that Mike was right next to her, alive and well and it's steady beat kept thoughts of anything otherwise at bay.

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**A/N-It's kind of really cheesy, but I hope you all enjoyed nonetheless! Leave a review! **

**~WriterAtHeart14~**


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